162 PROP. PKESTWICH ON THE AGE, FORMATION, AND 



had not learnt from the paper that any scratched stones had been 

 discovered. Though the soft chalk, clays, and sands of the district 

 would not permanently retain scratches, yet there are flints and 

 ironstones capable of preserving striations. On the other hand, 

 local ice-action on a small scale was admitted, and Mr. Topley and 

 he had resorted to that explanation to account for the ver}' sharp 

 bending of some beds of gravel near Tonbridge ; but this was a 

 very different thing from allowing that the origin of the Chalk 

 escarpment is largely due to ice-action. 



Mr. De B. Cravvshay had recently discovered the Southern Drift 

 on the top of Botley Hill, near Titsey, the highest point (877 feet) on 

 the l^orth Downs, and had there obtained five rude implements. He 

 had also found rude implements on the Tatsfield Firs at 820 feet, 

 thereby proving the four highest patches in that locality to yield 

 implements. He remarked upon the Betsom-Hill patch at 750 to 

 790 feet being on the south side of the escarpment, thereby differing 

 from all the others. With regard to implements in situ^ he observed 

 that Mr. B. Harrison had found a flake on the side of a pond at Ash, 

 below the level of the surrounding plain. He hoped to open sections 

 in the course of the year, and would be very pleased if Eellows of 

 the Society would come and see them. Many of the flints were 

 scratched, but he did not advance them as glacial striations, and 

 would leave the Author to deal with them. 



The President, after alluding to the Author's researches many 

 years ago, which threw so much light on the origin of the 

 river-terraces and topography of the South-east of England, and 

 revealed to geologists important evidence of a former extremely 

 cold climate in that region, asked for information regarding the 

 nature and operation of the glacial action to which it was proposed 

 to refer the formation of the Chalk escarpment. He confessed him- 

 self unable to realize how any operation of ice could have played a 

 material part in the sculpture of that part of our topography. At 

 the same time, he thought that geologists made a great mistake who 

 looked in the Southern Couuties for any such traces of ice-action as 

 they were familiar with farther north. There was assuredly no 

 ice-sheet in the south of the island ; the Boulder-clay and scratched 

 stones may be entirely absent, nor could the speaker see any satis- 

 factory evidence of floating ice. Yet there could be no doubt that 

 thoroughly glacial conditions did spread over south-eastern England, 

 giving rise, however, to a different class of results from those that 

 attended the more Arctic glaciation farther north. He reminded 

 the Eellows of the suggestive paper communicated to the Society a 

 few years ago by Mr. Clement Eeid, which showed how a period of 

 intense cold might be inferred to have prevailed along the South 

 Downs, though that ground is quite bare of anything in the nature 

 of true " Drift." 



The Author, in reply to the comments on the paper, admitted 

 that it was very desirable that plateau-implements should be 

 found in sitit in the drift, but the fact that there were no pits 

 and that excavations were rare in the plateau-drifts accounted 



